Drew's Blog

Well, the first beta release is looking like it’ll be today or tomorrow. It will incorporate only a 7-day view (with overdue tasks as well) and at current, you won’t be able to “complete” tasks with it, but if you’re lucky, I’ll be able to squeeze that in before I release it

There are just a few bugs here and there to fix, but I don’t foresee any major issues. As always, here is a current screen shot of the app in action:

If you have any suggestions on the current interface, please be sure to let me know! I’m thinking a little vertical spacing is needed and the project listings on the right should have a bit of padding, but that’s all I can say for sure.

Anyway, on to development updates! We’ve switched repositories from a locally hosted Mercurial repo to a github hosted Git repository. You can see the repository here.

And the final update! We’ve moved from our trac installation to using bugzilla to handle all of our issue tracking. That said, once the application is out, if you notice any issues with it, feel free to submit a bug report through the interface, or create an account on our bugzilla installation and report it! You can find out bugzilla installation here.

That’s all for today! If you don’t see our first beta release tonight, expect one on Monday (Tuesday at the latest!)

Well, it’s been a little while, but I’ve been making some slow progress towards my goal. Right now, I have log-ins working (it also stores your API key if you want it to be stored, thus never needing to login again). There’s a “Report” feature in the event you find bugs. And, as of right now, I have a fairly dirty interface that it opens up to (shows you a 7 day listing and overdue tasks). In the images below, I hacked the times together, so it’s actually showing you a week in the past, but it’s all good. I also don’t have the overdue tasks feature built-in quite yet, but that shouldn’t take more than an hour to write.

My goal? A beta release by this weekend.

Here are some screen shots. They’re kind of poor, but it happens. Also, the number on the app is the number of the project it’s related to (I need get a lookup working):

So, where do I go from here? Well, I’m going to try to spiff up the interface a tiny bit, so it’s not so crappy looking (More TODOIST like). Then after the Beta release, I’m going to move on to Project listing (viewing only) and probably do another beta release once that’s complete. After that, I’ll add the ability to add tasks to projects and release another beta. And after that, fix a few bugs, add local storage of data (until then, it will look-up data from the Internet for each request and will be slower), and release it on the Market. Once it’s up on the Market, I’ll keep adding features to it (and if you think of any features you’d love to see, let me know and I’ll make note!)

Let me know what you think and I’ll post again with the beta this weekend *fingers crossed*

Well, this has been a fairly slow process due to work and a laundry list of other things. But, in any case… I’m writing this for multiple reasons. The first is to let everyone know that someone has beaten me to releasing a Todoist application for the Android. Now, while I was slightly disheartened to find this out, I’m also glad to hear this since mine was taking so long. The name of this app is TodoistDroid and you can find their app on the Market. You can also find their site here.

Now, while I urge you all to go and check it out, I also hope that you all return to check out my app once it is completed. Better yet, I’d love it to hear your feedback once beta testing starts. I also hope that you all share the same feelings as I when I say that I’m not a fan for paying for apps. The TodoistDroid app has a “Lite” version and a “Regular” version. The latter of course costs money.

Now, while paying the money is surely justified, I don’t believe in it. This is why I will be releasing my application with only one version, which will be free. Their list of features and planned features are mostly composed of ideas that I’ve already had for my app (as well as a few they haven’t listed yet ). And lastly, I can’t say I liked their interface all that much. Now, while mine probably wont’ be 100% different (for the most part at least), I was planning to design everything around querying (main screen giving you your weekly list and that sort of thing).

That is why, I would love for you all to comment on how YOU use TODOIST. I would rather not design this for how I use it, as that may not be how everyone uses it. So please, in the comments section below, tell me about how you use it!

Now, on to the app. I’m running short on time at current, so I don’t have any screenshots for you today (Sorry! ). The login is working great, I have a support page where you can easily file bugs working, and the main section is able to display tasks. My first beta release will come before the end of the month and will show you a query of overdue items as well as items due in the next seven (7) days.

That is all for today, and please, tell me how you use TODOIST so I can design it around what you want to see

Well, I’m about 50% complete with the API Handler and I just created the login page. Granted, it doesn’t truly do anything just yet, but it still looks snazzy :3

Anyway, the login page is displayed to the right. Also, I’ve setup a trac installation. I encourage anyone who is interested to create an account and follow along. As soon as I have a working release, I’m going to put it up on there for beta testing purposes.

My plan as of right now, is to release Version 0.1 sometime in late April/early May. Version 0.1 will be a “read-only” version, and most likely not be very pretty. You’ll be able to log-in, view your projects, and view your tasks associated with those projects. Thus far, that’s my goal.

I think once summer starts, I should have no trouble rolling a lot of this code out, so I’m hoping for late May/early June as a possible release date for a “mostly” working app. Although, it’s probably too early to start throwing dates out. We’ll see ^_^

Anyway, the trac website is at: http://todoist.drewdahl.com/trac/

And finally, what you’ve all been waiting for… the latest image of Todoist For Android:

Well, I’ve finally found some time to sit down and get working on this app again. I’m currently working on a class that will take care of the interfacing between the Todoist API and the actual application.

Below are some screen shots of the application (left) and my actual Todoist Project List (right). Enjoy!

Note: Keep in mind, the data isn’t formatted at this time. I’m just trying to get all of the functionality there, and then worry about getting it pretty. ^_^

Well, I think I’ve got the basic GUI layed out in my mind. On top of that, I think I’ve played around with the GUI editor enough to know how to get it to do my bidding.

Finally it’s on to actually making a handler for the Todoist API. For that, I just wrote a couple of simple python scripts for testing so I know what the links have to look like and what the results should roughly be. Here a short example:

#!/usr/bin/python
import urllib
q = urllib.urlencode({‘token’: ‘myToken’})
r = urllib.urlopen(‘http://todoist.com/API/getProjects?’ + q)
print r.read()

This script just forms the link needed and then gets the web response. In any case, using this method, I’ve started making a TodoistAPIHandler class that uses a WebRequest class that I’ve made. So far, I have it getting projects. I suppose the next step is to figure out a good way to hold the JSON data it returns.

To be continued…

Well, I’ve just started working on my first application for the Android OS. My reasons for it? I recently purchased a Motorola Droid and have come to a conclusion. All of the to-do applications really suck in comparison to Todoist. The only decent one is RememberTheMilk; however, you have to pay a yearly fee to use the app on Android and I’m just not a fan of how it’s set-up.

That said, I’ve decided to create an application for Todoist. Overall, the learning curve for how everything hangs together seems pretty easy. There’s a ton of documentation available and thus far I’ve basically set-up eclipse with the ADT plug-in and used the GUI designer and made a couple of custom views. The initial bits and pieces of trying to figure stuff out is a little frustrating, but it takes no time at all to finally figure it out and take off like a mad-man writing Java. So easy, a monkey could do it =)

Here’s a current view of what the GUI looks like. This isn’t actually pulling any data from Todoist’s site yet; however, it will be soon enough. And on that note, if you’ve never used Todoist or have never heard of it, I recommend you check it out. here.

In any case, let me know what you think of my design thus far.